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Obama Has Spoken. Your Turn, Congress

President-Elect Obama did the right thing today by announcing his new economic team and making it clear that "we have no time to waste" in addressing the unfolding horror show that has been spreading fear across the land for months.

Like it or not, time has sped up in the digital age. Two months would be a long time to spend waiting for a shift in leadership even under the best of circumstances. During a crisis that is metastasizing on an Internet timetable (one that makes the 24-hour news cycle look quaint), it would be an eternity. Obama has signaled that he and his team will spend that time preparing the groundwork so that the incoming Congress can pass a stimulus package "right away."

It would be nice if Congress—both the outgoing and incoming versions—would show the same sense of urgency and seriousness. Republicans need to stop stonewalling and spewing revisionist history lessons (like the one that F.D.R. made the Great Depression worse) and start realizing that the election results meant one thing: Americans want a new direction. Now.

And Democrats, for their part, need to realize that their situation is as perilous as it is promising. They are about to assume near-total control of the federal government's policy-making branches at a time of near-unprecedented crisis. If things don't get better, they're going to envy the pain Republicans have felt as voters punished them for the failures of George W. Bush.